Thursday, 13th .....

There was very heavy rainfall overnight but it has cleared up a bit by this morning. Still, it isn’t a day for bush bashing. We decided to go back to the Trout Centre this morning to get a couple of pictures and were lucky enough to find one of the rangers processing some fish which had come up from the river overnight.

The ranger explained that the extra water coming down the stream triggered the fish’s instinct that it was spawning time and they returned to the stream where they themselves had been hatched, in this case, the Waihukahuka Stream.

On the stream there is a trap to catch the fish on their way up. The rangers measure and weigh the fish and take a sample of their fin for a DNA project. This information help them manage the fishery effectively.


The stream temperature stays between 10.5 and 11.50C all year but standing hip-deep in water for hours in the winter is no joy. They might have to process 200 or more fish in a busy day during the spawning season and they can only wear a cotton glove on one hand; the other has to be bare.

We only stayed long enough to see him process 2 fish, a 1.4 Kg male (jack) and a 1.2 Kg female (hen). Both were well over the minimum catch length of 400mm.